“Did what?”
“Took her own life. The crushers didn’t kill Dolce. She was pregnant and she killed herself. She couldn’t accept what you had become. And what you would become. Because with each cloning, your brain degenerated faster.”
“You mean it happened before?”
“Your car accident. When you were sixteen. You died that night,” Phillip said. “That was the first time. And then again, after you murdered Reynolds. Your memory was modified. Your mood swings were erased, your ‘tendencies,’ you used to call them. Genico had developed the Samp years ago. It was used to cure and treat post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“Why did you never tell me?”
“It wasn’t part of the plan. Father wanted you to be taken into the Synthate camps. He wanted you to get involved with the rebellion. Everything led to this moment. He sacrificed you for the cause.”
“Don’t lie to me, you called the crushers. You identified me. You were there when they took me.”
Phillip hung his head sadly. “I was there. I knew you had murdered Reynolds. I knew what you were capable of. I thought you had to be stopped. And to my shame, I didn’t have the nerve to do it myself. But I do now.”
“Stop me from what?”
“The Samp you have, the 6th Day. You believe it’s going to help Synthates. Make them indistinguishable from naturals. But it won’t. It will change the balance, but it’s going to kill thousands of naturals. Father thought naturals had become a plague on the Earth. And the only solution was to rid the planet of them. Let the Synthates inherit the world.”
“No,” Jack said. “I don’t believe you.”
Jack advanced with his ax. Phillip moved out of the way as Jack swung. The weapon swooped through the air, then buried itself into the edge of a desk. He tried to dislodge the blade, but it was embedded deeply into the wood.
Phillip lifted his ax but Jack tackled him. The two brothers fell to the ground in a flurry of punches. Phillip drove his knee into Jack’s stomach and rolled free. Jack grabbed a rapier from the display case as Phillip launched the throwing ax end over end. Jack fell flat as the weapon spun overhead, cracking the glass wall at the end of the office. Jack pushed himself upright to find his brother pulling a curved scimitar from a jewel-encrusted scabbard.
“I’m going to use the 6th Day Samp,” Jack said. “And I will go through you to do it, brother.”
“You’re not my brother,” Phillip said, hefting the curved blade. “My brother died years ago.”
They crossed weapons again in the center of the office. Phillip was tiring quickly now, his mouth hung open, and thick beads of sweat fell down the sides of his face. Sensing the end was near, Jack moved faster, his Games training keeping his body moving. Through the window, two helisqualls roared by, spinning off toward the Custom House. He wondered how the battle was going. But soon it wouldn’t matter. When the 6th Day was realized, there would be no Synthates. No naturals. Only one human race.
Phillip’s foot caught on something and, exhausted, he stumbled backward. Jack pushed the advantage, the rapier blurred the air, and he buried the blade deep into Phillip’s side. Phillip roared with pain as the sword pierced his gut. He swung his blade up, catching Jack across the shoulder and slicing into skin and muscle. Phillip pulled away, staggered for a moment and then collapsed to his knees.
His hand reached up to the wound and he pressed against it, blood pouring around the edges of his fingers. The color drained from his body, leached out into the ground. He looked down at his destroyed body, then up again at Jack. Behind him, setting sunlight burned across the river, and in the distance, the towers of Manhattan sparkled with infinite promise.
“Where’s your humanity now?” Phillip asked.
“I’m a Synthate. You didn’t give me any.”
Jack turned his back and headed toward the elevator. He would find Night Comfort and then they would access the scrubbers. Synthates would finally be free. Behind him, Jack heard the rasping final breaths of his brother.
“Jack,” his brother called out.
He turned and saw Phillip standing at the end of the weapon display.
“Look.” Phillip pointed a bloody finger. “Your shoulder.”
Jack looked down at himself. His shirt was torn open where the scimitar had cut him. Blood flowed from a gash across his shoulder, his skin hanging loosely from the wound. Something moved, a quick flash of something beneath his skin.
Jack took hold of the loose skin and began to pull. Slowly, the skin peeled away from his shoulder, coming off in a single rubbery adhesive piece. Disgusted, Jack gave a quick jerk, and the skin segment pulled completely off. Beneath was new, pale skin, and across his shoulder, a bioprint of a three-masted warship crashed through churning waves with cannons blazing.
“They covered it with skin spray,” Phillip said. Jack’s brother pulled an old flintlock pistol from the case and aimed it unsteadily at Jack. “You know, you can’t always win in everything.”
The weapon boomed with a burst of smoke and flame. Pain punched its way into Jack’s right shoulder, just over the bioprint, and he fell backward. A crimson flower of blood welled up beneath his clothes. Shocked, Jack looked up as Phillip carefully lifted the second pistol from the case.
Jack held up his hand. Phillip ignored him. His brother looked wildly out across the room and called out, “Father! I want you to see this. Where are you?”
Jack turned toward the empty space, seeing nothing. But then, slowly, came the faintest shimmer of movement. And as if rising from inside a mist, his father’s face appeared, 3Deeing in space in the center of the room between bursts of static.
“I wanted you to see this,” Phillip said, still holding the revolver. “I wanted you to see what you’ve done.”
Jack started toward him. “Phillip, no!”
Phillip turned the pistol, placed the heavy barrel in his mouth, and then pulled the trigger. There was the loud clap of the weapon, and the back of his head erupted. The body collapsed to the ground.
Jack was frozen by the pain in his shoulder, and he reached for the wall to steady himself.
“You’ve been shot,” his father’s voice sounded from the 3Dee. “Are you injured?”
Jack turned toward his father. The 3Dee flickered strangely.
“I don’t understand,” Jack said. He could feel the blood draining from his body. “The things my brother said.”
“You were never meant to hear any of that.”
“But are they true?”
“Yes,” his Father said. “You died when you were sixteen years old. But I couldn’t bear that. So I brought you back. I created your memories as best I could. And you lived. And thrived.”
“And Reynolds?”
“Reynolds had to be dealt with.”
“I murdered him?”
“You did what had to be done,” his father said. “No more. And you took no joy in it.”
“My God.” Jack felt sick. His entire world was off balance. He wanted to lie down, close his eyes, and forget all this. “Why did you do this to me?”
“Because you are meant to be a king. Synthates will rule this world. Your kind will rule. And the naturals have no place left.”
“But we can live together,” Jack said.
“No. The naturals will never accept you as equals. They will never be able to be trusted. There is no place for them.”
“So the 6th Day Samp?”
“It is designed as a plague for naturals. Synthates will not be harmed. And in only a few days’ times, maybe weeks, Synthates will have the city to themselves.”
“But that’s never what I wanted.”
“It’s not about want. It’s about necessity. And we all do things that are necessary.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I will find someone who will do this.”
Jack looked down at his body. Blood dripped steadily on the floor. He wondered how long he could even stand. “I’m dying, any
way. It doesn’t matter.”
“You can never truly die,” his father said. “I’ve made sure of that.”
The elevator pinged and the doors slid open. From inside came Regal Blue pushing a cart with a coffin-size black box. The box had a power source at the bottom that glowed a rich green. Regal Blue pushed the cart to the center of the room and then stepped back, arms folded behind him. Jack staggered to the box. The last time he had seen Regal Blue, it was inside the tunnel, Baltimore Raiders coming to kill them.
“You survived the Games?”
“Sky King saved me.”
Jack touched the lid of the black box, and with a hydraulic hiss, the top slowly slid open. Inside was a full-grown man, naked and pale, feeding wires rising from his navel, a thin coat of amniotic covering his skin.
The man’s face was Jack’s own.
Jack turned toward Regal Blue. “This is my clone?”
“He is.”
“So you wait until I die, then you replace me with him?”
“I do.”
“Jesus,” Jack said.
“You don’t die,” his father said. “This way you can live forever.”
“But this thing isn’t me.” Jack indicated the man in the black box. “I’m not him. We’re separate. This is some artificially created man. He doesn’t know my life.”
“He will be you exactly. He has your same DNA. Your same memories. He will be you.”
Jack turned back toward Regal Blue. “Have you done this before?”
“I have.”
“When?”
“The first was when you were only a boy. Then you were shot by Mr. Reynolds. You died on the floor that night in the library just feet away from Reynolds and his wife. I removed you and placed a second you in your bed. You awoke that morning as if from a bad dream and went to work without any knowledge of what had happened.”
“When else?”
“Later, when you escaped the Genico building, you bled out and died. I placed a second you in the hotel room. Again you awoke, evaded the crushers, and made your way on as if nothing had happened.”
Jack remembered the bad dreams. He remembered the moments of waking up. The feeling of strangeness, of still being caught in some dream world. And he remembered now how Dolce had changed around him. Her distance. Her look of fear. Now he understood perfectly. She had taken her own life. She had known what was happening around her, and had felt powerless to stop it. The crushers hadn’t killed her. It had been Jack. And his father.
Even if what he was hearing was true, then Night Comfort must have been in on it. There was no one he could trust. Not even himself.
Jack turned back toward the 3Dee. “What are you?”
“I am your father.”
“No, you’re not. I don’t know you at all. I don’t know who you are.”
“I have done all this for you. To change the course of history and to make you a king. The Synthates will follow you and you can rule them.”
Jack staggered forward, walking slowly toward where his father 3Deed. He passed through the projection and kept moving. Ahead was a large oak door with the image of a tree carved on the surface.
“Where are you going?” his father asked, a slight note of hesitation in his voice.
Jack pushed open the wooden door and stepped through the frame. Inside was a hospital room. A sleek, black, polished floor, white walls, and a bed surrounded by medical equipment. In the bed lay his father. He had grown so thin he was barely recognizable. His skin was translucent, and cool to the touch. Wires and tubes covered his body. His head barely made a dent in the pillow. He was a living corpse.
Regal Blue stood at the edge of the room, watching carefully.
“His brain is still sharp,” Regal Blue said.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s dying.”
“He can hear me? Understand what I’m saying?”
Regal Blue nodded.
“I understand,” his father’s voice said, a new 3Dee appearing in the hospital room.
“Good.” Jack bent down near his old man’s ear. “I forgive you.” He reached out and took his father’s hand. Jack took the 6th Day Samp from his pocket and showed the tube to his father.
“What are you doing?” his father asked.
The liquid inside glowed. He pressed the injector of the vial against his father’s arm. “But I can’t accept what you’ve done.”
The Samp injected the liquid into his father’s arm. Trapped in the prison of his failed body, his father remained completely still. But Jack saw the faintest glimmer of movement in the old man’s eyes. A slight narrowing of recognition.
The 3Dee began to flicker, then faded away. His father was gone.
Exhausted, Jack slumped down against the bed, then slowly sat. His back rested against the bed frame, the beep and whir of medical machines around him. From the corner, Regal Blue watched him impassively, like a vulture waiting for the end to draw near.
“I’m dying,” Jack said.
“Shall I call for help?”
Jack shook his head. There was a war going on outside. Nobody would come to help him. And maybe that was best. Jack had been created with lies and had lived with falsehoods. Maybe what he needed was something new.
“When I die, will you replace me?”
Regal Blue bowed. “That has always been my job.”
“And my memory?”
“Will be altered. You will forget what has happened with your father. You will awaken only knowing that you must help Synthates. That the revolution must come at all costs.”
Jack shook his head. “I want you to promise me something.”
“If I can.”
“I know I’m dying. I know you will replace me. But please, leave my memories as they are. I need to remember the past. I need to know the things that have happened. It’s important.”
Regal Blue looked thoughtful. He tapped the black box with his fingers, then glanced toward Jack’s dead father. Finally, he nodded. “Your memory will stay.”
“Thank you,” Jack managed. He looked out across the room. A vidImage 3Deed in the corner. Some lingering memory of his old man, perhaps. It was Jack, Phillip, and their father. Taken long ago, when Jack and his brother were boys, their father a much younger man, years of life still left ahead of him. Jack was smiling, Phillip had a slightly worried expression, and their father grinned, his arm around both of them. Behind them, rising into the sky, was the skeletal framework of the not-yet-constructed Genico building.
Soon there would be a new world. A better world. Without naturals and Synthates. But only men and women and the ways they choose to live.
EPILOGUE
Awake. Eyes open. Jack lay on the sofa in his father’s office. His father was dead. Phillip was dead. Dolce was gone. Time is a careless hand, stretching roughly forward, destroying everything until all is lost but memory. The memory of this place. The memory of her. In time even these moments begin to fade, distant parts of the mind that grow dim with disuse. He would come here often to remember how it had been.
Night Comfort sat on the edge of the sofa, her hand on Jack’s shoulder. Regal Blue stood in the corner. Jack was the son of a Synthate and a natural. He was Genico’s legacy. That was the past and now the future stretched forward as vast and blank as the ocean.
The wind changes the face of the rock one grain of sand at a time. Too much time for any one man’s life. Today was Friday. Somewhere the crowd had cheered and battles had taken place.
But not here. Here, there was only the beginning of the new world.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my amazing agent, Kimberley Cameron, for staying the course and believing in this project from the beginning. Every writer should be so lucky.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matthew B.J. Delaney published his first novel, Jinn, in 2003. Winner of the International Horror Guild Award, the novel was optioned for film by Touchstone Pictures, was featured as P
eople magazine’s Page-Turner of the Week, and received a Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Delaney received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Dartmouth College and a master’s in public administration from Harvard.
Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, he left a career in finance and moved from Boston to New York City to join the New York City Police Department. He has been a member of the NYPD for twelve years and has been assigned to precincts throughout Manhattan and the Bronx as well as within Police Headquarters and the Intelligence Division. He is currently a decorated special operations lieutenant serving in a Brooklyn violent crime suppression unit. He continues to write in his spare time.
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